Most Australian Animals Want to Kill You -But we still need to save them and their habitat

Giant Australian Jungle Bird Attacks

Video credit: Youtube by TommyBoyKN

Introduction

Ok, Now Ive got your attention with my blatant Click-bait headline I want to tell you about the amazing but endangered giant flightless bird, the Southern Cassowary ( Casuarius casuarius johnsonii) and how we can help them survive for our grand kids to see one outside a zoo.

Image source: Wikipedia

Discussion

Did you know?

That in the North Eastern part of Australia lays the some of the oldest rainforest remaining in the world. The Daintree region just North of Cairns is part of the wet tropics, the famous Cape Tribulation area where the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef attracts tourists from all over the world. Many of the visitors to the Daintree are often surprised that many areas of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest have been cleared for rural housing development and farming, even though the area is a declared World Heritage zone. You can read more about when and why this happened from Rainforest Rescues page

Some of the greatest threats to the Cassowary are not just habitat loss but the fragmentation and modification of their rainforest habitat, vehicle strikes, domestic and native dog attacks, human interactions such as feeding, habitat damage and predation by wild feral pigs, disease and natural catastrophic events such as tropical cyclones ( Hurricanes or Typhoons).

The Daintree rainforest has many rare, endangered plants and animals , one of the groups trying to help preserve this unique ecosystem is the Rainforest Trust- Australia , without the Cassowary many species of rainforest trees can't survive as their seeds must pass through the digestive tract of the bird before they can germinate.. Gross but true.

Below is an excerpt from Rainforest Trusts description, to read more and learn how a few dollars can help support this amazing ecosystem or another group with similar goals is Rainforest Rescue you can also click the links below the block quote for more info.

The Daintree Rainforest is among the oldest rainforests on Earth and the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest remaining in Australia.
Encompassing striking landscape diversity, Daintree National Park holds mountain ranges, fast flowing streams and waterfalls, deep gorges and dense rainforest that in some places runs straight down to the sea. The wide variety of habitats make the Daintree one of the most complex rainforest ecosystems on Earth, and one of the most ancient.

Millions of years ago, rainforests covered much of eastern Australia. However, as conditions shifted to become drier, the Daintree became the last remnant of the continent’s once mighty tropical forests. Within this last refuge, many species of plants and animals have continued to persist relatively unchanged over millions of years and have retained the same primitive characteristics of their ancestors. Unusual species such as Bennett’s Tree-kangaroo and the Southern Cassowary reside here, as well as a number of extremely ancient plant families found nowhere else on Earth.

Because of the Daintree’s unique evolutionary history and wealth of wildlife, it has been declared a Wet Tropics World Heritage Site, with Daintree National Park lying at the center of protection efforts.

However, encroaching housing development around the park’s borders threatens to fragment forests and disrupt wildlife through human traffic and the introduction of exotic plants. To help, Rainforest Trust- Australia is working to purchase 15 private properties to be transferred to the Queensland government. Together with five already owned properties, the new land purchase will expand Daintree National Park by over 29 hectares.

To find out more on how you can help preserve the wet tropic habitat of the cassowary, visit
Rainforest Trust Australia
or
Rainforest Rescue

For more information about the Cassowary, visit the Queensland Dept. of Environment and Heritage Protection page https://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/wildlife/threatened-species/endangered/endangered-animals/cassowary.html

Conclusion

I have visited the Daintree many times over the past 30 years, and have seen many changes. When I first went in the late 1980's, once you crossed the Daintree River ferry it was a 4x4 only track to Cape Tribulation, now it is a fully sealed road. I loved to visit the area and was lucky enough to see a few elusive wild Cassowary a number of times, although it was much easier to visit when I lived in Cairns as now it is almost 2000 km North of where I live.

I have personally supported Rainforest Rescue in the past but hope to do more when I can, I promise to donate the Australian Dollars equivalent of any Steem I receive for this post toward preserving the Cassowary and its Habitat.

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